Kidnapped at Gunpoint: 81 Days in Captivity

Real Survival Stories

NOISER

Documentary, Society & Culture, Wilderness, Sports, History

4.8 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 30 July 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 2013 a celebrated journalist travels to war-torn Syria. But near the front line he’s taken hostage by a group of rebel fighters. Over the next 81 days Jonathan Alpeyrie will get to know his captors extremely well. Harrowing, absurd, surreal… the ordeal will push his body and his mind to the limit. And with the threat of execution always hanging over him, forming a bond with his kidnappers will be crucial to his survival… A Noiser podcast production. Hosted by John Hopkins. Written by Duncan Barrett | Produced by Ed Baranski | Assistant Producer: Luke Lonergan | Exec produced by Joel Duddell | Sound supervisor: Tom Pink | Sound design by Jacob Booth, Matt Peaty | Assembly edit by Rob Plummer | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Ralph Tittley. For ad-free listening, bonus material and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Click the subscription banner at the top of the feed to get started. Or go to noiser.com/subscriptions If you have an amazing survival story of your own that you’d like to put forward for the show, let us know. Drop us an email at support@noiser.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I spent all night on this presentation and it still looks so boring.
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0:22.6	It's April 29th, 2013.
0:28.6	A tiny village somewhere in war-torn Syria.
0:33.6	A white pickup truck pulls away from an abandoned villa, trundling onto a dusty, cratered
0:40.3	road.
0:43.3	Inside the vehicle is photojournalist Jonathan Alperi, 34 years old, tall and athletic.
0:52.3	Born in Paris and raised between France and the United States, he combines the cool charm of a
0:59.3	cosmopolitan Frenchman with a rugged, all-American physique of a former swimming champ.
1:07.4	Right now, Jonathan is traveling with a distinctly motley band of associates.
1:13.6	At the wheel is his local fixer, Alpharuk, smart, lanky man in his 20s.
1:19.6	For the past week or so, he's been Jonathan's indispensable right-hand man in Syria,
1:24.6	translator, guide, chauffeur and more.
1:34.7	Next to Al-Farouk, riding shotgun in the front passenger seat, is Abu Farras, a commander in the Free Syrian Army, one of a number of rebel outfits currently warring against the country's
1:40.5	dictatorial government. Bearded, heavy set, dressed in army camo with a traditional
1:46.7	Syrian kaffir on his head, Abu Farras is not a man you'd want to mess with. One of his soldiers
1:53.2	stands in the bed of the truck, gripping the roof of the vehicle as it jolts up and down
1:57.9	on the pothold desert roads.
2:01.1	He is keeping a careful watch as they head west toward a looming mountain range.
	...

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